Tag: writing

It’s been a while since I documented my thoughts on here. I’m happy to say it’s not just going to be a bunch of complaints spat into the void of cyberspace. More like it’ll be a general update of this random dude’s life, still spat into the void.

My final year of my university degree has come to a close, though I have half a credit left to complete over this summer. I’m taking basic ASL, and it’s hard to tell how well I’m doing. Apparently I can’t sign my name very smoothly, which is fucking with me. I’m still working in a job I hate, and my current posting has a lower pay-rate than I would like. I’ve been applying elsewhere, and I’m hoping everyday to get an email, or a call, or a secret private message asking me to come in for an interview. The last 12 days have been non-stop with work, or school, or funerals. This is my first free day, and I’m spending it writing my third space trucker story.

A brief history of what’s been going on.
November: I had another emotional breakdown because of someone I think I mentioned before. This followed my complaints about not getting to have a Halloween, which was crushing to my morale.

December: The job tried to kill me. I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I swear there’s no fucking way what happened was legal. Word to the wise, if Commissionaires Ottawa ever uses the words “good opportunity”, “It will look really good on your file”, or “we have the perfect place for you”, they will fuck you.

So, the company equipped me with winter gear and shoved my ass outside around New Years. The first day (Dec. 30th) I was at Major’s Hill Park. My cat had pissed on my knapsack and it stank up the little shack we were allowed to take breaks in. Whoops. It wasn’t so bad in the end, except for the wind cutting through my jacket, and the snow pants, and the cold bled through the gloves and the supposedly -40C ensured boots. I ran out of coffee early, and there was very little time for breaks. This wasn’t the day which broke me. That was day two, Dec 31st. I showed up at the downtown office and two of us were shipped off to Lady Grey Drive, which is a strip of asphalt behind the Mint and the National Gallery. The third of our team met us there. One of our team was moved up to Nepean Point at some point through the day. I cannot recall when. All our job was was to only allow gallery employees to park in behind and otherwise have sawhorses up. The van which dropped us off was supposed to swing by the let us warm up throughout the shift. The van showed up twice in eight hours. I only bothered to warm up once, because after I had, I went right back to freezing. There was no hut to warm up in. There was no portapotty to piss in. Lady Grey Drive is along the river, and it was in the middle of a snowstorm. So my partner and I froze our asses off as we stood around waiting for someone to try their luck, and froze our pricks when we took a leak against the rocks behind the Mint. We both used the exhaust vents to keep some sense of feeling in our fingers. I could barely feel the heat. My fingers were numb with or without gloves, so I figured fuck it, I’ll text and listen to a podcast.

All the while, I could hear the complaints of other people who weren’t exposed for eight hours on the radio, complaining about small trifles and breaks. I could only laugh. My mother told me to walk off the job right then and there. My old man, who is also a guard for this company, told me the same. I refused, because that would leave my partner all alone out there. Our replacements showed up late, because the driver didn’t know Elgin was going to be closed off. I got home and got drunk. I broke a champagne glass and could only laugh. Then cry. Then laugh. I didn’t usher in the new year. I went to bed by ten or so. Holly texted me that she “couldn’t… feel” or some shit. So I blocked her. It was about time. I was so numb from the cold that I didn’t feel the emotional resistance. Maybe I should freeze my nuts off more often.

The third shift, on the 2nd of January, was also a SNAFU, as my partner never showed up. Luckily it wasn’t so cold. One person had to guard the gate so the jackass tourists, who could not understand that a security barrier, let alone the heavy machinery and upturned earth means “DO NOT FUCKING GO HERE”. The people over the radio said I could go in if I got cold, but at that point I didn’t really feel the cold much anymore. Besides, the people from Heritage Canada had to come in and out so often that I had to stay where I was. I thought I was going to get massive shit for taking a leak. At least I had a pot to piss in that day. The workers we pretty dickish. I find it’s a trend that the government employees look down on guards. If I ever work for the government, I refuse to be that person. I was replaced by a guy who took the job way too seriously, who was so green to the industry that I could still see the stars in his eyes. While waiting for his partner (he said it was impossible that I had no partner through the day, and I was like “Well, do you see anyone here?”. Like what… am I making it up?) I told him I planned to go to Toronto next summer and he told me to ask for a transfer. Everyone seems to think I want to apply to another security company or stay in security for the rest of my life when I say I want to quit the Corps. It’s absurd.

January: school started up again not long after the frozen hell shifts. I kept doing shifts, for some reason. I guess to make money and continue to be less than an employee number. I met a girl from my classes towards the end of the month, Chelsey. She was cool, sarcastic, funny, and more than a little cute. We started chatting a lot, and she was giving very wordy answers. My friend Kaelen also expressed interest; this was the second time this had happened.

February: I unblocked Holly on the 7th of February and went to a play with Chelsey and Browen. I unblocked Holly just to see what would happen. My buddy Alex showed up later too. Kaelen was going to go, not to see the play, but in order to spend time with Chelsey. He had zero interest in the play. So… I said don’t go if he was going to have a bad time. This seemed to be the optimal move.

March-April: these months are a blur. My counselor cancelled an appointment because he was sick. I rebooked for the following Wednesday and when I woke up to a massive snow storm said fuck it. I got billed for late cancellation. What a shit system. I got super stressed from school and turned 24 in early April. I messaged Chelsey on the 14th of April and never heard from her again. She never even saw my message. Fuck it, fuck her, and fuck the world.

April-May: In general, my mood has been pretty great really, except I get pangs of loneliness here and there and any mention of work makes me descend into anger. I started as campus security at U St-Paul, which has been taking up all my time. I got word my childhood friend, Shaun’s, dad passed away. I went to the memorial, reconnected with Shaun, or am in the process of reconnecting. The campus job pays me about two bucks less than I’m used to, which is two bucks above the minimum. And it’s only on weekends. And I’m doing far more fucking work than anywhere else that pays me between 15-17 dollars per hour. I guess the students, staff, and church groups who visit on Sundays are worth less than government workers.

Been hanging out with Browen’s former roommate Jacqueline. She’s fun, and hasn’t seen any movies I reference. I don’t entirely know what her game is. I’ve been semi active on Tinder, currently talking to a girl named Maddie who seems really nice. I only got extremely lonely this past weekend because, shock of shocks, Holly complained about her attempts to be polyamorous. I’m very cold with her. Every response is measured, and very rarely joking. “Things aren’t the same as they once were/ [I] feel the echo in [my] heart”.

Tonight I’m going to see Get Out with Jacqueline. Next week I’m going for coffee with Maddie. I guess we’ll see how that goes.

MEDIA:
Rogue One: It was perfectly serviceable. The characters were flat as fuck.
Ghost in the Shell: It was okay. Watered down, but not quite dumbed down. I liked some aspects more than the anime.
Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 2: More laughs per minute but less good jokes; weaker soundtrack; good at expanding on the characters.

Agents of SHIELD: This has been one hell of a season. I’m glad it isn’t cancelled. Season finale tonight.
American Gods: Bryan Fuller continues to make pretty and graphic television.
Legion: Best mindbender of a show since Mr. Robot.
Iron Fist: ehhhhhhhhhhhhh…

Resident Evil 7: Really good but short horror experience.
Nier Automata: I’m interested in playing this soon. If my job were paying me more, I’d have bought it by now.
Mass Effect Andromeda: Pretty good; lacking in some places; lack of ‘bad’ choices lowers quality.
Persona 5: contender for my game of the year. Already. Hate the cat though…

Started considering a big project on Cyberpunk as a subgenre. Time to steal as many articles as I can from school before I leave…

Next blog post should be Friday or Saturday night. Will have opinions on Get Out and progress on my next space trucker story. The editors want it soon.

I’ve been wondering if it would be too much having the ending to a YA story be bittersweet and even totally tragic. In a lot of my work, I build up a character to tear them down completely as a form of catharsis for my depression, but when it comes to the group I have built for “Super” it might be a little much to have a big chunk of them dying (at least the ones I haven’t already planned to kill of as catalysts to progress the narrative). The end of this story has been haunting me since I drafted the idea, and it’s a thought that comes to me both in real life stories and fictional ones: how did we get here? remember when things were simple? what happened to yesterday to get us to today?

I’ve thought of ending the story as though it were a television series: with a licensed song I might have on my playlist, like ‘Heroes’ or something… the protagonist goes through all the big turning points in their growth, where the won and where they lost battles… ‘Heroes’ always makes me tear up about how it seems Bowie is trying to convince the other person that they can do this, they can make it. I think of Holly a lot when I think of the song, because of our shared struggles… and given how that relationship is going these days, the sense of yesterdays slipping away is only magnified.

Maybe I want a hyperbolic version of my teen years full of ups and downs, losses and gains, big moves and catastrophic failures combined with my emotional and nervous breakdowns from the last few years. Maybe it would be good for teens to see that you can still lose, and not be okay, but you keep going and will maybe one day be alright… I guess I’ll have to ask around.

I’m sick of hearing about other peoples’ adventures, or seeing them on social media. Not in the sort of “ugh I’m so tired of this” but in a “I feel like fucking retching because I’m so jealous”.

A friend of mine that lives far away I had a sort of thing with, and then a sort of thing for (read into that as you will) had a lesbian threesome last night. Good for her, she deserves some action and she’s so awful with social situations that I’m glad she’s getting any at all.. but I want to have some fun too. Not necessarily with her, just in general. I’m not the sort of guy who can go to a party and get laid (I was going to say “Every time”, but really, it has never happened and likely never would) but I want that. If not sex, then at least a date once in a while. Just one, maybe every few months, where I know it’s because of interest and not because the wires were misaligned and we showed up for different reasons.

This scenario did do something for me, not out of jealousy for once but envy. I asked someone I am really interested in to see Doctor Strange. I don’t know how it will go, or how she sees me… but we matched on Tinder over the summer so I guess there was something there at one point. Summer being summer, work got its hooks in me and dragged me through the months, making me wish the same things I am aching for now: experiences.

Writing for NaNo has gone south this month (already) because of my writer’s block. I’ll start up again tomorrow, probably, but I’m so far behind that there is no way I can hit 50000 words by the end of the month. All the same, the system isn’t meant to be won but light a fire under your ass to write write write write WRITE.

I’ve had nightmares about the past these past two nights, things that have evoked feelings of nostalgia… mostly of Megan. There was a way I used to hug her at the thighs and lift her up in the air and she would look at me in a certain way that made me weak in the knees, so to speak. I miss that feeling. In my dream, I had done that same lift with a girl I’ve been talking to from Tinder, except I lost my balance. Wonder what that means…

I would write tonight (well, this afternoon) but I have dinner plans with an old friend. Time to try and be busy with my life…

“I wanna taste love and pain/ wanna feel pride and shame/ Don’t wanna take my time/ I wanna live better days/ never look back and say/ it could have been me” – Could Have Been Me by The Struts

Had a Spanish test on today of all days, 6-8, which made sure I couldn’t be home to scare the shit out of children and give out candy. Bummer. Girl I met in Celtic Lit before reading week seems to be very talkative. Might be interesting to see where that goes.

Watched Halloween 3 when I got home. Weird and creepy flick that is simultaneously campy as hell. Instead of watching more horror movies and trying to salvage what bit of my Halloween spirit was left, I decided to start writing my project for this year’s NaNoWriMo.

“Super” is the story of a group of friends who get superpowers and have to deal with rapidly escalating situations. Topics include love, loss, identity, responsibility, and hope. The target audience is young adults, but I refuse to tone down my language use. As most YA books go, this is planned as a trilogy of books taking place in the protagonist’s senior year of high school. Inspirations are all over the map, notably Skins, Misfits, Runaways, and Saints Row 4 (where I designed many of my characters and tweaked their powers).

To help me on the way, I’ve made up a playlist to write to which contains various songs I listened to in high school or which remind me of heroism.

Lyric of the day: “I can’t forget/ The times that I was lost and depressed from the awful truth” – My Heroine by Silverstein

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